: | Greymouth Star | Laura Mills |[Subscription Only] The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says consular officials have been in touch with the Gloriavale Christian Community outpost in India. In the recent TVNZ ‘docuseries’, Escaping Utopia, former Gloriavale members travelled to India and met a member who moved there…
: | The Spinoff | Claire Mabey | In light of Gloriavale’s reluctant acceptance of Winnie-the-Pooh, Claire Mabey argues in favour of the wider canon of anthropomorphic animal literature. There is nothing more bleak than the banning of books and the curtailment of reading. Control what people read and you control what…
: | The Post | Wellington Court Reporter | Former Gloriavale members have begun refining their claim of “slavery“ as it heads towards a hearing of allegations that the Crown failed to protect them at the closed community. Four people ‒ Anna Courage, Pearl Valor, Gideon Benjamin and Hosea Courage ‒…
: | RNZ | Lillian Hanly | Survivors of abuse in care arrived at Parliament today to hear the formal apology from the state which oversaw and inflicted harm on children. Public sector leaders from Oranga Tamariki, the Ministry of Health, New Zealand Police, and Ministry of Education also apologised, as did the…
: | AWLA | Open Letter | AWLA has written an open letter to the Government urging it to take immediate action to address concerns for the health and safety of wāhine and tamariki residing in Gloriavale Christian Community. In December last year, the Government abandoned a Cabinet-mandated joint agency response…
: | The Press | A recording has emerged of what is believed to be Gloriavale leader Howard Temple allegedly admitting to the community that the Bill of Rights had been breached and that people had been forced to work. The video, leaked to ThreeNews, was recorded in 2022, shortly after some…
: | RNZ | Jean Edwards | Gloriavale families have been cautioned against reading fairy tales, books that celebrate Christmas and children’s stories depicting animals dressed in clothes, by a senior leader checking the community’s reading material. In an email sent to members last month and obtained by RNZ, Servant Peter…
: | NZ Herald | Melissa Nightingale | Lord of the Rings, stories about Christmas and Easter, and nearly all books containing pictures of animals wearing clothes are on the list of reading material considered too “worldly” for Gloriavale’s children. An email leaked from the West Coast Christian community and sent to politicians…
: | NZ Herald | Jenée Tibshraeny | Gloriavale’s viability is looking increasingly shaky as it faces the possibility of being de-banked. BNZ, which has been banking Gloriavale’s various businesses and entities for about 40 years, wants to shut the exclusive religious community’s accounts. It argues Gloriavale has breached its human…
: | Deadline | Max Goldbart, Jesse Whittock | The BBC has picked up a premium doc series on a group of people’s clandestine escape from a New Zealand cult. Escaping Utopia is a three-part investigation into Gloriavale Christian Community – New Zealand’s extreme religious cult – and the true stories of people attempting…
